Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished ManuscriptReview Method: Peer ReviewedAbstract: This study tests whether media can exert an impact, if personal experience already exists. Research indicates that media have a bigger impact on those without than on those with personal experience. For those who gained personal experience, it is important whether the media depiction is in line with personal experience or whether it is contradictory. Public opinion research suggests that with incongruent personal experience media can exert an influence when it is perceived as portraying the majority opinion. These assumptions were tested with an experiment (n = 523). Participants and non-participants of an event received a film stimulus (positive, balanced and negative) covering that event. Results show that non-participants are stronger influenced by the film than participants of the event. Yet, even for those with personal experience, media can exert an influence: Participants changed their evaluation of the event accordingly. This effect is mainly mediated via the presumed majority opinion.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished ManuscriptReview Method: Peer ReviewedAbstract: Social media platforms, comment boards, and online market places have created unprecedented potential for social influence. Experts and scholars warned that this might reinforce dynamics of opinion polarization. Formal models of social-influence dynamics are powerful tools to describe polarization processes and explore the conditions under which social influence fosters polarization. However, these models’ assumptions about how individuals adjust their opinions as a result of social influence have hardly been tested empirically in online contexts. Here, we propose and calibrate an encompassing model that captures competing micro-level theories of social influence. Conducting a lab-in-the-field experiment with an online polling tool installed on news website, we observed that individual opinions shifted linearly towards the mean of others' opinions. There was no support for negative influence. From this finding on the micro-level, we formally predict the macro-level opinion dynamics resulting from social influence. Next, we tested our macro-predictions using data from another lab-in-the-field experiment. We found that opinion polarization actually decreased in the presence of social influence, in contrast to the notion that online social influence fosters opinion polarization. Finally, we corroborate our findings with large-scale field data from a natural experiment.

3. Chen, Yun-shiuan (Viola)."The Social Class of International Education Experience?— Taking Participants’ Experience of Taiwan’s National Programs for Overseas Study and Enrichment as Example" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the 14th Annual International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, May 16, 2018<Not Available>. 2019-09-15 <http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p1383831_index.html>

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished ManuscriptReview Method: Peer ReviewedAbstract: Along with globalization comes increasing emphasis on international education and students’ global mobility. Nevertheless, what has been less discussed is the socially stratified experience of youths going abroad. Taking Taiwan’s participants’ experience of government programs for study abroad and international enrichment as example the research unpacks the inherent social class issue in students’ experience while pursuing advanced study or working vocation. Via critical scrutinizing narrative data collected from in-depth interviews with 15 scholars studying abroad and texts of 15 working vocation participants posted on websites sharing experience the research analyzed how the participants’ experience of various government programs are inscribed by globalized neo-liberal discourse and socially stratified. While the youths on government’s fellowship programs broadened their career development and professional networking on a global scale through overseas academic programs, the working vocation partakers on loan program took labor work for international experience that nevertheless did not necessary promise career development.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished ManuscriptReview Method: Peer ReviewedAbstract: Given the tremendous pressures placed on American higher education institutions, we were initially interested in how academic deans were coping. We explored how faculty members transitioned from teaching into deanships. Using qualitative methods, we interviewed four newly appointed deans (three male, one female; two minority; three interim and one dean). Our findings suggest the extend to which unique experiences, professional knowledge and environment shape the preparation to becoming a dean.